Census: UBOS to count people in lodges, clubs

The Uganda Bureau of Statistics (Ubos) has rallied local leaders to work with census officials to count even people in lodges and clubs in their areas. 

The Ubos principal statistician, Dr Vincent Fred Ssennono, said: “We realised that those people were not counted in the previous census. So, we decided to work with the owners this time to avail us names of their clients when the exercise begins,” Dr Ssennono said on behalf of Dr Chris Mukiza, the Ubos executive director. 

The 2024 National Population and Housing Census exercise has already kicked off with registration of households to be followed by mass counting of people from May 10 to May 19. 

Dr Ssennono, who met local leaders of Kawempe Division on the ongoing counting of households at Tick Hotel in Kawempe, Kampala, on Saturday, said Ubos will kick off the exercise with training of the district census officers on April 4. 

“We shall start with training of census officers at the district level and later village levels, with the last session expected to be held between April 29 and May 7,” he said. 

Dr Ssenono urged the local leaders to work with the census officials to make sure all the people who will be counted are residents of their areas. 

“People are very harsh on us and some of them deny us access to their premises and others chase away our officers,” he said.  “When you go back make sure you mobilise your residents to be hospitable to our teams on the ground because we don’t want to receive complaints that some houses have not been counted,” Dr Ssennono said.  The Ubos teams are currently moving in different parts of Kampala Metropolitan Area with the help of local leaders to register households, buildings, and their owners. 

Registration of households and properties started two years ago in different parts of the country and the exercise is going to end in Kampala. 

Ubos says in Kampala, people constantly shift from one place to and it has been deemed appropriate to count the city dwellers last. 

Dr Emmanuel Sserunjogi, the Kawempe Division mayor, asked Ubos to recruit competent officials as they conduct registration and counting of buildings. 

“Five years ago, when they did mass counting of properties, Senior Six and university leavers were deployed and ended up taking wrong information,’ Dr Sserunjogi said. 

“Even the residential houses, which were exempted from paying taxes, were allocated taxes and we ended up in total, which should not be repeated,” he said. 

Uganda last undertook the National Population and Housing Census in 2014 and this is the first census to use digital technology to collect and process the data.

Ubos says the digital system will help them produce accurate and timely demographics, social and economic statistics.